Tractate Shabbat, Chapter One – Lesson 43

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[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, now in our Tosafot, he answers the same way and brings support from the Jerusalem Talmud, and he says as follows: that we’re dealing with holes that are typically made during construction, which open through to the public domain, and on the private-domain side they are four handbreadths wide, but not on the public-domain side. And according to everyone, this is considered a hole of the private domain, because the holes of the private domain are regarded like the private domain itself. And they disagree only about making it into a place of four by four. This is what apparently confused me. I said they disagree because they want to set it up so that it will be a place of four by four. Okay? According to Rabbi Meir, one may carve to complete it, and it is considered like four by four. But again, in light of your comment, the meaning is: it is considered like a place of four by four, and therefore it is a hole of the private domain. Not that it is therefore a four-by-four place in the public domain, the way I thought earlier. Okay? Rather, it is a place of four by four, and therefore it is an extension of a hole of the private domain. That’s all. So this is of course according to Tosafot’s view, that for the holes of a private domain there has to be a place of four by four. We learned this in the previous lecture, that this is the third approach. There’s the Meiri, the Rashba, and Tosafot. Yes, according to the Meiri and the Rashba, it does not need to be a place of four by four, either because in a private domain there is no such rule, or because a hole has the status of four by four since it is attached to the private domain. But according to Tosafot, the hole itself has to be four by four in size, otherwise it is not considered one of the holes of the private domain.

[Speaker A] That’s what I meant when I said that therefore there isn’t here—that’s what the four by four means.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, yes, of course, but it’s not the four by four I was talking about; it’s four by four within the public domain. You’re right, I think I made a mistake here. Therefore it implies in the Jerusalem Talmud, where we read there: according to Rabbi Meir, whether there are four there or whether there are not four there, we view the wall as hollowed out. “Hollowed out” means that we make a recess in it. Meaning, that it is carved out. And specifically those parts that are above ten are considered a private domain, while those below ten are not used by the people of the private domain because the people of the public domain use them. And then they explain the flow of the Gemara. In any case, Tosafot brings proof from the Jerusalem Talmud that we are really talking about a through-hole. And the discussion is: who uses it? Do the people of the public domain use it, or because of the people of the private domain does no one passing through the public domain leave anything there, because someone from the private domain will take it? So if that is the case, then it is not considered to be in the use of the passersby of the public domain. So what do we see in the Jerusalem Talmud? We see that it too understood that we are talking here about a through-hole, a hole that passes from the private domain to the public domain. Yes, that’s what it means to say. So for our purposes anyway, Tosafot here not only brings Rabbi Isaac’s answer, but there is also proof for it from the Jerusalem Talmud. That’s the first note. A second note: Tosafot in Yoma comments as follows: Rabbi Meir holds that one may carve to complete. But that which is said in the first chapter of tractate Shabbat, that a house whose interior is not ten high—one may not carry inside it, etc.—that fits according to everyone. Yes, that’s our previous passage. So it goes according to all opinions, both Rabbi Meir and the Rabbis. What exactly is the point of this comment? Seemingly, one could have said that according to Rabbi Meir one should be allowed to carry inside it, because one may carve to complete. So if the thickness of the ceiling is enough to complete the space to ten handbreadths, then essentially we have a situation where in principle it is fit to be carved out into a ten-handbreadth space. So according to Rabbi Meir we should view it as though there were a ten-handbreadth space here, and then it is a private domain, not a karmelit, and therefore one should be allowed to carry inside it. And Tosafot answers: no. The rule that one may not carry inside the house is stated according to everyone, even according to Rabbi Meir. Again, that’s not so terrible, because the practical halakhah does not follow Rabbi Meir. One could say that it goes according to the Rabbis, and the practical halakhah follows the Rabbis. But Tosafot says it as a matter of reasoning, not because he has some difficulty. That’s an important point to notice—this is a comment one should always think about. What drives Tosafot to say this? He says it as a matter of logic. What compels him? There’s no real difficulty here. You could have said that the previous ruling goes according to the Rabbis’ view, because in fact the practical halakhah follows them and we do not hold this way; but yes, Rabbi Meir would indeed say that even below that it is a private domain. What is so hard for Tosafot to say that? I think what you see here is that Tosafot really doesn’t find that hard to say. Tosafot is not saying this as an answer because he had no choice. He says it because clearly it must be true. Why is it so clear to him? And this is what he says: it fits according to everyone, and since nowhere is it ten high, we do not say “one may carve to complete.” What he means, of course, is a return to the Gemara in Yoma, where we see there how they frame the dispute: there is a height of ten, and there are side supports of three handbreadths’ height that are four handbreadths wide. So there are two requirements if we are to say “one may carve to complete.” One requirement is that there be some segment that is four handbreadths wide. Yes, a segment at least three handbreadths high. But there is another requirement; that is not enough. The overall height of the gate must be ten handbreadths net at some one point.

[Speaker A] At one particular point.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right. The peak has to pass ten handbreadths. Now seemingly the question arises: why? If above there is a thick ceiling, so that the roof of the ceiling—the upper edge of the ceiling—is above ten handbreadths, then why should I care that the whole gate is less than ten handbreadths? One may carve to complete. Let us say that we view the upper part as though it were hollowed out, yes, as though it were carved, and therefore there are ten handbreadths here. So what is the problem according to Rabbi Meir? Then we should say one may carve to complete. Tosafot says: evidently not. We do not say one may carve to complete regarding the measurement of height of ten handbreadths, only regarding the measurement of width or area of four by four. He doesn’t explain why. But even though he doesn’t explain why, it’s clear that he had a simple intuition that this is how it must be. Okay? So now the question is—I’ll say more than that. In principle I could also have rejected this in the Yoma passage. I could have said that in the Yoma passage, when they say there that the general height is ten handbreadths, they don’t mean the net height of the gate. The dispute between the Rabbis and Rabbi Meir is when in the first three handbreadths there is a width of four, and above that there is an arch, where the arch reaches ten handbreadths not net—not the empty space but gross. And then one could have said that according to Rabbi Meir, since one may carve to complete, it is a proper gate and requires a mezuzah. But Tosafot assumes there something that is not written in the Gemara. The assumption says that the second requirement about the height is a requirement about the net height, not the gross height. And then he has proof that according to Rabbi Meir we never say “one may carve to complete” on the Y-axis, only on the X-axis. Or not on the Z-axis, only on the X and Y axes. Okay? So this too, what I just said now, is not necessary in the Gemara in Yoma. And of course that strengthens even more my earlier claim, that Tosafot is really making a determination here based on reasoning. Not because of necessity. If the reasoning had gone the other way, I could have managed with the Gemaras. The law of the house goes according to the Rabbis, and indeed Rabbi Meir disagrees with it. And in the Gemara in Yoma, what Abaye says—that the requirement is for a height of ten—would mean a gross height of ten, not net. And then everything is fine; I can manage with saying that according to Rabbi Meir one may carve to complete even for height. But Tosafot apparently assumes that this cannot be. He does not prove it. He assumes it cannot be. And that of course raises the question: what is going on here? Why indeed do we not say it regarding height but we do regarding area? But that obligates us to address—and before we talk about why this is done only in area and not in height, we first need to understand why we do it at all. What is the logic of this idea of “one may carve to complete”? We need to understand. It’s not—after all, on the face of it this is a very strange idea. I require an area of four by four. My requirement is not here. What does it mean to say, “if I could”? I could always do things; I could also build all sorts of other things around it. What do you mean, “I could”? It isn’t here. The required condition does not exist. What does it mean that if there is a possibility of carving, then it is as though it is carved? More than that—if there were room… if the person intended to carve, then perhaps one could say: he already relates to it as a significant place; he just hasn’t yet managed to carry it out in practice. We find things like that in the Gemara in a number of places, for example, “grapes that stand ready to be harvested are regarded as though harvested.” Meaning, if I am about to harvest the grapes, then as far as I’m concerned they are already considered detached from the vine. Conceptually, for me these are already fruits that are not part of the vine. True, I haven’t actually done it yet, but that is already the status, because that is my plan. So maybe—one second—maybe one could also say here that if it were my plan to widen the hole or carve out this amazing gate, then I could perhaps understand what Rabbi Meir says: if that is your plan, then whatever stands ready to be carved is regarded as carved. By the way, that is Rabbi Meir’s own approach. “Grapes that stand ready to be harvested”—that is Rabbi Meir’s law. Now I suddenly remember that, in tractate Shevuot. But in our context, nowhere is it made contingent on his having plans to widen this place. No. The very fact that it can be widened is enough to define this place as a large place. The question is: why on earth? Why say such a thing? Yael, yes.

[Speaker D] I’m saying, it reminds me a little—I think we even mentioned it in the study session—the issue of extending upward or extending downward. Meaning, just from the fact that I see or imagine some kind of continuity, that already gives it some justification.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, I understand, but here I’m not imagining continuity. How can I imagine continuity? There is nothing here naturally telling me that this hole is really larger. There is a big wall here and inside it a small hole. With extending upward and extending downward there is a natural continuation. I have a partition ten handbreadths high, and once there is already a defined partition here, then I view it as though it continues further, because there is something that already has directionality. So I’m just extending the movement. But the hole has no directionality at all. There is a small hole here, and suddenly I treat it as though it were a large hole. Why? Especially since this is not some law given to Moses at Sinai. Extending downward and extending upward are laws given to Moses at Sinai. And where did we ever find a law given to Moses at Sinai that one may carve to complete? As is well known… Maimonides’ view is that there was no dispute about laws given to Moses at Sinai, and here there is a dispute between Rabbi Meir and the Rabbis about “one may carve to complete,” so at least according to Maimonides it is unreasonable to say that this is a law given to Moses at Sinai, because otherwise the Rabbis would not disagree with Rabbi Meir. Well, a problematic statement of Maimonides, but never mind—that is his view. In any case, what is Rabbi Meir’s reasoning? It seems to me that Rabbi Meir’s reasoning can be explained in two ways. Want to try? I asked you—think about it in the study session. Chani, I already talked about this with you, so who wants to try? What is Rabbi Meir’s reasoning? Why say one may carve to complete?

[Speaker D] We talked about it—wait—the opening,

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There is a requirement for a certain area or volume. That requirement isn’t present, it isn’t fulfilled. So how does Rabbi Meir say yes, but as though it is fulfilled? What does “as though” mean?

[Speaker D] We said only if there is potential—not as though it’s fulfilled, but if there is potential to fulfill it, and we just talked about that now.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There is potential to fulfill it, but I have no plan to fulfill it and I am also not going to fulfill it. So why should I care about the potential? The requirement is that it actually be there, not that there be potential. I also have the potential to keep the Sabbath, so does that mean I kept the Sabbath? If I didn’t keep it, let the potential die.

[Speaker C] Maybe in the sense that the thing already functions as if it were like that. A person at a certain height, for example, passes through this gate as though it were really fully that height. I didn’t understand. It really doesn’t—it doesn’t actually have that width, but it functions as though it has that width.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why? How does it function as though it has that width?

[Speaker C] A small hole—it doesn’t function. I mean a person at a certain height passes through there easily.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, on the contrary, he doesn’t pass through there. It’s filled in; a person can’t pass there.

[Speaker C] A person—but if there are ten in the middle.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, there are, but I require a width of four, not a height of ten.

[Speaker A] But Nehama, think: they say “one may carve to complete” if there is a possibility, but if this gate is something narrow, then there is no option to complete, and from the point of view of a person passing there it makes no difference whether there is a possibility to complete or not.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The size of the opening is the same size. The net width, I mean. Yes. Look, I think there are two possibilities here. Chani also, I think, thought of these same two possibilities; we talked in the study session. I thought of two possibilities. One possibility is to say that when the object rests in the hole, that is considered as though it rests on the wall. The hole is part of the wall, and if the wall has the required measure, then as far as I’m concerned the object rests on a significant place. That’s it—it rests on the wall. So therefore “one may carve to complete” does not mean that we view the hole as though it were carved out. That’s not the point. Rather, we view the hole as though it were part of the wall, and this whole entity of hole plus wall is the significant place. It is a private domain, it has a meaningful measure, and everything is fine. So I am not seeing the hole as an isolated cavity, as something standing in opposition to the wall; rather I combine it together as one unit. Okay?

[Speaker E] So then the word—the word “carve” really means “combine”? Is that what I understood? When Rabbi Meir says “one may carve,” he means—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] “Carve” means dig out, but according to this explanation what he means is: what does “one may carve to complete” mean? As far as I’m concerned, it is as though it were carved out. Why? No, because the whole point of carving is to give it the proper measure. And together with the wall it has that. So as far as I’m concerned, it is as though it were carved. That is the point. Not that I really see it as though the hole is bigger. The hole is not bigger; rather, the hole and the wall together are bigger, and that is enough for me. That is one possibility. A second possibility is—understand, this is where the point I made earlier, my earlier mistake, comes in. Because if I understand that what is really required here is a place of four by four in the public domain, then it is more reasonable to say such a thing. Because if I say that the only reason I need the size of the hole is because I really threw it into the public domain, and when the hole is small that is not called a place of four by four—then if I view it as significant, it is indeed a place of four by four. So there one could say: I threw it onto a significant place, because overall the wall plus the hole is a significant place. If the discussion is about whether this thing is part of the private domain inside—which is probably the discussion here, and not what I said earlier—then it is really more problematic. Because then in what sense is this hole, say according to Tosafot, according to Rabbi Isaac, where we are dealing with a through-hole, yes? Or according to the Jerusalem Talmud—then here one has to say that the hole is significant not because it combines with the wall, but because it combines with the broad hole located on the private-domain side. And this whole hole together is one large hole of the private domain.

[Speaker D] But without the wall, I think we really need to understand what the wall is, because without the wall the hole is not significant. A kind of example that crossed my mind is the hole in a bagel. Meaning, if I don’t have the bagel, then I don’t have a hole. So the wall is what is significant.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There’s a dispute between Rashbam and Tosafot in Bava Batra about what a pit is: are the pit the walls, or is the pit the cavity inside the walls? There is the bagel issue.

[Speaker D] Okay, but then without those walls, or without the wall, then the hole has no meaning at all. So for me maybe we need—no, I was actually saying that Rabbi Meir is right as far as I’m concerned, but no, no, wait. But I’m saying, if we say what the wall is—does it belong to the private domain or the public domain—and maybe based on that.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, so that is what I’m saying. So therefore I’m saying, look. It depends on the two possibilities, and again, one of them is probably not correct, but I’m only trying to explain the motivation for discussing it. If I understood this hole not as a through-hole, but rather as a hole facing the public domain, okay? And I say: this hole is small. So when the object rests there, I have transferred, thrown, an object four cubits in the public domain, but it came to rest in the hole. And this hole is small; you need placement on a place of four by four. In the public domain one certainly needs placement on a place of four by four. Okay. What do we do? So Rabbi Meir says: one may carve to complete. And we consider this place significant. Here it would be natural to say that it is significant not because we really see the hole as though it were bigger, but because the place where the object rests is not the hole, but the wall plus the hole. It is like when a person holds something with his hand; I say the person is holding the thing, not that the hand is holding the thing. The person holds the thing by means of the hand. So I placed the object on the wall—where? By means of the hole. But really it is resting on the wall, not on the hole. And then I say that this place has significance. But in light of Chani’s correction, I need to correct what I said. We are dealing here with a through-hole, according to Tosafot and the Jerusalem Talmud at least. I think everyone agrees, but according to Tosafot and the Jerusalem Talmud, yes. And then what happens is that the broad or significant part is the part of the hole that faces the private domain. And the part facing the public domain is narrower. Now here I would say the same reasoning but in different wording. It is not the hole plus the wall, but rather the hole on the public-domain side together with the hole on the private-domain side. That is Rabbi Meir’s claim, that the hole in itself is a significant place. Why? Because the hole on the private-domain side has the required area, and as far as I am concerned the hole is one unit. Again—not with the wall, as I wanted to say earlier; the hole itself is one unit. Understand? Meaning, according to what I wanted to say earlier—my mistake—I thought one had to view the hole as one unit together with the wall, and say that this whole thing is a significant place, and therefore I placed the object in the public domain on a significant place. But I accept the correction, and I say no. The question is whether this is a private domain, not whether it is a place of four by four in the public domain. So really the question is whether the outer part of the hole can be considered together with the inner part as a significant place. And I do not distinguish between the two parts of the hole. When I place the object in the outer part of the hole, I placed it in a significant hole. Why? Because inside, this hole has four by four. So it is a significant hole. Why not? Okay?

[Speaker A] And that works with Yoma.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Wait, we’ll get there in a moment. So that’s one possibility for “one may carve to complete.” I see the hole as one unit, the part facing the public domain and the part facing the private domain, and according to Rabbi Meir the hole as a whole is a significant place; it has four by four. I don’t care that in some places yes and in some places no. And then—that is one possibility. According to this, in Yoma too it’s the same thing. Therefore we indeed saw that there has to be some part that has the measure of four, a width of four. The side supports of height three handbreadths have to be four handbreadths wide, and then I continue that upward. And what am I really saying? I am saying that this gate in its entirety, the whole ten-handbreadth height, is a gate of width four. Why? Because down below it actually has a width of four, and above, true, the width includes the stone around it, but there too there is still a width of four handbreadths. So if you ask me what the width of the gate is, the width of the gate is four handbreadths. Just like with the hole.

[Speaker A] But she’s saying: if you say it’s about the hole itself, then it no longer matters whether one may carve because there is a possibility to carve or whether there isn’t a possibility to carve.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, it does matter. Because if there is no possibility to carve, then I’m not willing to view this entire thing as one unit, as with the hole. A hole. If in the hole itself, on the public-domain side, there were no possibility of widening it to four handbreadths, then I would not say that it goes together with the hole of the private domain. Meaning, according to Rabbi Meir there are two requirements. There has to be a part that has the actual measure, and the other part has to have the potential. When these two requirements are met, then what do I say? I do not claim that the potential is actualized. Rather, what I claim is that if I need to ask myself what the width of the hole is, I say: four by four. That is the one answer I can give if you ask me about the hole as a whole. If you want graphs and sketches, I’ll tell you here the measure is this, here the measure is that. But if you ask me what the status of the hole is in general, in general it is four by four. The same thing I say about the gate. If both requirements are met—below there is a width of four, and above it can potentially be seen as width four together with the stone—then the answer is: this is a gate of width four. I’ll give you an example of this sort of thing from the laws of nullification by majority.

[Speaker A] You know that if—I don’t understand why you need the potential—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Wait one second. If a piece of non-kosher meat falls into a pot that contains many pieces of kosher meat, then fundamentally one may eat everything. It is nullified by the majority. Many later authorities explain why it is nullified by the majority: because if you ask me a general question about all the meat in the pot, is it kosher or not kosher? Think of it as one unit, one mixture. Now it can receive one of only two statuses: kosher or non-kosher. And the claim is that if the majority there is kosher and I need to answer in one word, then I have to say that the meat there is kosher. That is the meaning of nullification by majority. Not that the prohibition really becomes permitted, but that I view the whole mixture as one whole, and one whole has only one characterization. And if the characterization is that it is kosher, then all the parts of the whole are kosher. What I want to claim here is something of that sort, or actually it is even more similar not to nullification by majority but to the rule that most of it is like all of it. “Most of it is like all of it” means, for example in the hole, that if there is some part of it that is like this, then as far as I’m concerned the whole hole is like this. Okay? That is the claim. Okay, Chani, did you want to ask?

[Speaker A] It’s just that—I understand everything you just said, I just don’t understand, according to this, why the potential matters or not. Regarding the first explanation you gave, that he sees it as the hole together with the wall as a whole, I understood. But if we relate only to the size of the hole itself, then why should I care about the potential being there? After all, at the end of the day there is some part here that does fit, so we view the whole hole that way. Why does the potential matter?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But why should the part that does fit have priority over the part that does not fit? Why shouldn’t you say that this whole hole is entirely insignificant, even on the private-domain side? Why does the private-domain side, which is in fact four by four, determine the label of the whole hole? Why not the public-domain side?

[Speaker A] And therefore, therefore I can say the same thing.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And therefore, if there is potential to expand, then it makes more sense to say: okay, so I really view this whole thing as four by four. Okay. Fine? So that is one possibility. That is one direction. A second direction is that according to Rabbi Meir—you know, I once saw this, I don’t even remember where I saw this example, I think maybe in a book by Etzion Halevi Oltzberg—I think I once saw it there. You know that really the sculptor does not sculpt the statue; the statue exists even before he does anything. He only removes the excess. The statue already entirely exists inside the stone or the wood or whatever it may be. What the sculptor does is only remove the unnecessary parts. What? He carves.

[Speaker D] Yes, exactly, just to reveal.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There is already a statue. The Holy One, blessed be He, is the sculptor. The sculptor only removed the things that prevented us from seeing the statue. Okay, so of course that’s just a nice bit of wordplay, but I’m trying to bring it as an example for the point I want to make here. And that is that if there is potential for expansion here, then I really see this as a large hole that is partly filled in. What would happen if this hole were a large hole, but I placed things inside it? Or filled part of it? Now I have a small hole. True—but I can see that really there is a full hole here, only—look, let me take a better example. We talked about a sukkah of ten handbreadths in height, right? What happens if I put a table into the sukkah? The table is, I don’t know, seven handbreadths high. I am left with three handbreadths above the table. So then I don’t have a ten-handbreadth space. So why is the sukkah valid? You’re not standing on the table. Doesn’t matter—but a sukkah is supposed to be valid when it has a height of ten handbreadths. It doesn’t have a height of ten handbreadths. It has a height of three handbreadths.

[Speaker A] It really is a problem to eat under the table.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Even if you eat under the table, you don’t have a height of ten handbreadths; you have a height of seven. And above you, you have a height of three. Either way, you don’t have a height of ten. Not to mention if you’re under the table.

[Speaker A] The question is what happens to someone sitting above the table.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, that—therefore I’m saying, that’s a different discussion. But for our purposes, what I want—I don’t want to get into the laws of sukkah; I want to explain the reasoning. What one really says in such a situation is: when I ask myself what the height of the sukkah is, I look at the structure of the sukkah. The fact that inside the structure of the sukkah there are objects does not mean that the sukkah is low. The sukkah is the outer structure, inside which there are objects. So you cannot say that the height of the sukkah is less than ten handbreadths. The height of the sukkah is ten handbreadths; I just put furniture inside it. My claim is that according to Rabbi Meir we look at the hole in the same way. If there is a situation where potentially it is four handbreadths, and certainly if initially it actually has four handbreadths, then what I really want to claim is that the hole is four handbreadths—even on the outside it is four handbreadths—it is just partly filled in by something, just as I put a table there that takes up part of the volume. And then I can also tell you why both requirements are needed. If on one side there are actually four handbreadths, then as far as I’m concerned the frame of the hole is a frame of four handbreadths. So what if part of it is filled in? Even so, Rabbi Meir says there is a hole of four handbreadths here. It is a significant hole. So what if part of it is filled in? That does not make the hole itself smaller. There are things inside it. Of course this is only a technical way of looking at it, because it is not really true; here these are not just things I placed inside it—the hole itself is smaller. I just want to say that if on the private-domain side the hole itself is four by four, then in the public domain I see it as though that too is four by four, only partly filled in. Okay? That is another line of reasoning. And I would say the same thing also about “one may carve to complete” in Yoma. There too I really want to claim that the gate is four by ten. True, it is partly filled in by stones, or whatever, by that arch, but really it is a gate of four by ten. Okay? It is quite similar to the previous explanation, but not exactly the same. The previous explanation says: it’s not that I see it as partly filled in; rather there is some potential framework here, and the potential is really the real thing, only it is partly filled in. Here, what I claimed earlier was something else. What I claimed was that on the conceptual level I view it as having width four, not because it is partly filled in but because that is the general designation of the hole or the gate. Here I am claiming: no, it is actually four by ten, it really is four by ten, it is only partly filled in. And if that is the gate—the gate is the theoretical frame. What is inside is decoration. If I place a mezuzah on the gate—say the gate is four by four—and I place a mezuzah on the side, then it is obligated, right? I placed a mezuzah on the side, and now the mezuzah reduced the width by two centimeters—does placing the mezuzah exempt the gate from a mezuzah? My answer is no.

[Speaker A] Nice. The mezuzah—if they had carved it in, they would have—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] They would carve it in, they’d make—

[Speaker A] a recess instead of having it protrude.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, but in my case, like in our case, let’s say they didn’t carve it in, they just—

[Speaker D] But if we were to depict it in a diagram or something, we would say: we have here a wall four by ten within which we cut an arch.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly. Exactly. Meaning in the end, think of an engineer drawing this: even as a visual aid he would draw a rectangle of four by ten, and inside it he would show us some arch that cuts away part of it. I assume that’s also how such things are designed. Okay? And therefore there is some logic in Rabbi Meir’s words—that if there is that potential, then I see it as though it really exists, only partly filled in. Okay? So that is the second possibility for understanding Rabbi Meir’s reasoning. Now, say—I constantly have to guard against the mistake I made at the beginning, because it follows me the whole way through. If I had understood that Rabbi Meir’s “one may carve to complete” means the hole plus the wall, then of course there would be no reason in the world to assume what Tosafot requires—that there must be some part of the hole that has the full measure of four by four. You understand that correctly, right? Because if I were to say that Rabbi Meir’s reasoning in “one may carve to complete” is that the hole is indeed small, but together with the wall it creates a significant place of four by four with the wall, as I wanted to say at the beginning—okay? If that were the situation, then there would be no place for saying what Tosafot said, that there must be inside an actual width of four by four in order for us to say “carve to complete.” What relevance would that have? I am not looking at the hole itself as something significant at all; it is the hole plus the wall. Therefore, if that is the conception, then one need not say what Tosafot says. And I already said that what Tosafot says comes from reasoning. Okay? So now what I want to say here is—I’m maneuvering between the plan of the lecture and the correction it needs to receive because of my mistake. So I’m making corrections on the fly. There are medieval authorities (Rishonim), approaches among the Rishonim, that disagree with Rabbi Isaac. And it seems that those Rishonim do not accept Rabbi Isaac’s thesis that there has to be part of the thing that has the full measure in order for us to apply “carve to complete.” For example, first of all I think there is Rashi on our passage. Because Rashi on our passage does not even hint at such a thing. Let’s share. One moment. Here is Rashi. Rabbi Meir holds: something that does not have the required measure, but there is thickness and width there to carve and complete it to the required measure—we say it is as though carved. So according to Rashi, it does not seem that there must be some partial measure there. No: something that does not have the measure, but if it could have the measure, we say it is as though carved. Okay?

[Speaker A] He didn’t know Yoma? He knew

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yoma. The question now is how he fits with Yoma. Fine, we’ll have to discuss that. Because of the difficulty from Yoma, Tosafot said what he said, but I already told you that the difficulty from Yoma was not the reason Tosafot said what he said. Because I can resolve the difficulty from Yoma even without that. So let’s see. In any case—sorry, I said that regarding the height. I said that regarding the difficulty about height, not about the matter itself. So in any case, in another moment we’ll see how it fits with Yoma. In any case, this is what Rashi says here, and it seems that Rashi does not accept Tosafot’s conception—that there has to be some part—or Rabbi Isaac’s conception, of his grandson, that there has to be some part that has the full measure. For him, “one may carve to complete” can be applied to the entire cavity.

[Speaker D] No, it can’t be that Rashi doesn’t accept the words of his grandson; rather, his grandson is challenging Rashi’s words.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, yes, of course. I’m just using an anachronistic language here from our perspective. Okay? So now of course the question remains: how would Rashi answer Tosafot’s difficulty? Because there in the passage we see that you need side supports of three handbreadths with a width of four in order for us even to get started. Without that, we will not say “one may carve to complete.”

[Speaker A] Shall we say that it’s a gate, that it’s something different? Huh? That’s what we saw later. Right. Mezuzah has its own separate story.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, we’ll see in a moment. So in fact Rabbi Akiva Eiger, in his glosses on the Talmud, points to the passage in Chullin 126. And the Gemara there discusses—I’ll do it briefly—a dog that ate dead flesh, from a human corpse. And the dog itself died. Because if the dog did not die, then this is called concealed impurity and therefore it does not impart impurity. The dog itself died. So it does not conceal the impurity. Fine? Now, it is lying at the entrance to the house—the threshold is the entrance to the house—and the question is whether the impurity that is in the dog’s belly passes through the dog’s body, through the dog’s neck, into the house. The rule is that a tent-space conveys impurity, or carries impurity, into the space inside the house. Let’s say, for example, if there is a house here, and there is something impure here, okay? Then it does not render this impure here, but if there is a covering over it—if the covering is over the impure thing—then the impure thing, the impurity goes all along whatever is under the roof. Whatever is under the roof carries the impurity to the left. Okay? If it overshadows the impurity. Now with the dog, the impurity is inside its body, okay? And the body, from our perspective, is considered like some kind of hollow space that carries the impurity into the house. And then the whole house becomes impure because of it. Because of that piece of corpse that is in the dog’s belly, the whole house becomes impure. Because the tent—the dog’s body—is a tent-space that carries impurity. Okay? So the Gemara says as follows: Rabbi Meir—actually this is a Mishnah—Rabbi Meir says: if there is an opening of a handbreadth in its neck, it brings the impurity. And if not, it does not bring the impurity. Yes, so there has to be in the neck of the dog that is inside the house a handbreadth. Why? Because only a handbreadth in height is considered a tent-space. A tent-space has to be at least a handbreadth high. If there is not a handbreadth there, then no. That is what Rabbi Meir says. And Rabbi Yosei says, we look opposite the lintel, etc.; it doesn’t matter. The Gemara’s conclusion there is as follows: Rava said, we regard the cavity of the impurity as small. And Rabbi Yosei disagrees on two points, and what you said to Rabbi Meir—Rabbi Meir and Rabbi Yosei disagree about this. And what you said, that if there is in its neck an opening of a handbreadth, it brings the impurity—we follow the cavity. And what you said concerning the whole threshold, from the lintel inward the house is impure, from opposite the lintel outward the house is pure. What is he basically trying to say? He says that according to Rabbi Yosei, the house becomes impure only if there is a handbreadth of height also in the cavity of the dog’s body that is inside. According to Rabbi Meir, it is enough that in the dog’s body there is a handbreadth where the corpse is, but the neck that enters the house—even if it does not itself have a handbreadth—that is fine. According to Rabbi Yosei, no—even the neck itself must have a handbreadth of height in order for it to bring the impurity into the house. That is the Gemara’s conclusion there, without getting into the details. So Tosafot there writes the following about it. He connects it to our dispute, though the Gemara there does not say this, and Tosafot connects it to our Gemara. And Tosafot says: we follow the cavity. And Rabbi Meir, who does not require a cavity of a handbreadth, is consistent with his view in the first chapter of tractate Shabbat, that one may carve to complete, regarding one who threw and it came to rest in some tiny hole. What does that mean? Rabbi Meir follows his own view. And what is his view? His view is that one may carve to complete. So Rabbi Meir also says in that passage: if in the dog there is a cavity of a handbreadth outside, but the neck that enters the house does not have a net cavity of a handbreadth, but gross it does have a cavity of a handbreadth, including the flesh—not only the empty cavity inside the neck, but including the flesh around it—there is a handbreadth there. If so, then one may carve to complete. And therefore, Rabbi Meir says, I have a tent-space of a handbreadth entering the house. That is what Tosafot claims. Tosafot says: and even though in the first chapter of tractate Eruvin, regarding an arch, we do not say one may carve to complete unless its side supports are four wide—what is the difficulty?

[Speaker A] That there are certain conditions for “one may carve to complete.”

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That there has to be a part—that there has to be a part that has the full measure. Why? What for? This is Tosafot’s point.

[Speaker A] Meaning, from here we learn that for each case, “one may carve to complete” in every situation is something different.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Wait, wait, wait, wait, we haven’t learned that yet—I haven’t even finished reading the Tosafot. I’m asking: what did Tosafot ask?

[Speaker A] He—

[Speaker D] He’s asking regarding the arch, where we’re talking about measurements. Huh? How is it that with the arch we speak about measurements?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The arch is the difficulty from Eruvin—I’m not there yet, I haven’t read it yet.

[Speaker D] But how do we define why they defined measurements?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Ah, sorry, yes, I did read it, sorry. Yes, I did read it. What is he asking about the dome? He says that with the dome we see that there has to be a minimum size, that it has to have the full required measure, right? And only then do we say that we "carve it out" to complete the measure, based on the principle we saw earlier, right? What do we see here? That you don’t need that, because Rabbi Meir says that even if the whole cavity of the wall-hole is smaller than a handbreadth, if there is enough there to complete a handbreadth—meaning, you can carve away the flesh and go from gross to net—then we carve it out to complete it. Tosafot says, wait a second, but he doesn’t mention that part of the hole has to have an actual net cavity of a handbreadth. Why not? Here it seems there is no such minimum requirement. Right? That’s Tosafot’s question. Tosafot says: that applies only with regard to a mezuzah, because it says "in your gates," and we require a significant gate; but elsewhere, even if there are not four handbreadths there, we carve out to complete. And that requires further analysis there. What does that mean? Tosafot says mezuzah is a special case. In a moment we’ll think about what the explanation might be. He claims mezuzah is a special case, and therefore specifically with mezuzah we say the rule that there has to be a minimum width that genuinely exists. But in other cases, no, like with the wall-hole. If so, then this Tosafot apparently disagrees with our Tosafot. Because what would we say in our case about the hole? Now nothing is difficult anymore, right? The hole is not like mezuzah; mezuzah is something special. But as for the hole, the fact that you don’t need some part of it to have the actual required measure is no problem at all. The simple rule is that you don’t need any part with the actual measure. Mezuzah is a special case. So why are you asking me from mezuzah to our hole in the passage here? So according to Tosafot here, it comes out that he disagrees with Ri. Even though he says, "and it requires further analysis there." What does he mean by "requires further analysis there"? I’m thinking about what he meant—it isn’t clear—but it seems to me that what he means is that with the hole in our passage there was room to compare it to mezuzah, and not to the wall-hole. Why? Because with the wall-hole, what you need is a tent-space of a handbreadth, okay? There’s no discussion there of significance; less than a handbreadth is not a tent-space. Whereas with mezuzah, less than ten handbreadths high by four wide is still a gate, just not an important gate. And the requirement of carving is because we want the gate to be a significant one. So when the requirement is one of significance, then you need some part that already has the full measure. Tosafot says: but if so, maybe in our case too, the requirement is simply that it be significant as a place of four by four. So there too I would expect a requirement that one part have the full measure. And that is why he says, "and it requires further analysis there." He distinguished between the wall-hole on the one hand and the dome and mezuzah on the other. But it requires analysis which side of the equation our hole belongs to. Is it like mezuzah, where you need an actual section, and then it would be like Ri? Or is it like the wall-hole, where you don’t need a full section, and then he disagrees with Ri? Okay? In any event, on the side that he disagrees with Ri, then we see that this was an opening even before Rashi. So Rashi too can simply ignore Ri’s difficulty and say that in our case we’re talking about a hole that is entirely small. There is no part of it that is large, and still we say we carve out to complete. What do you do with the mezuzah there in the passage in Yoma? No—mezuzah is a special matter, because it says "your gates." That’s all. So there is no difficulty against Rashi, and Rashi doesn’t need to adopt the interpretation of Tosafot in our passage. Just as Tosafot here in Chullin does not adopt Ri’s position. Except that there is a bit of a problem here, because in the end the discussion about the hole does indeed seem similar to the discussion about the gate. There is some measure of significance here. And if you tell me that significance is not supplied by carving unless there is some part in which the measure actually exists, then I would expect that to be true for the hole too. And then there is indeed a question on Rashi, who explains it simply as a small hole. Maybe that is what Tosafot in Chullin meant by "requires further analysis," I don’t know. What? I can’t hear. What are you saying? I’m saying, I think there may be a difference, because with mezuzah what I really need is the actual open space so that a person can pass through there. So if there is no section where there are actually four handbreadths, then what good does all the carving do me to complete it? With a hole, what I need is only that it be sufficiently significant. So if you tell me there is potential to widen it, I can say that this is not a functional requirement. There is nothing about the hole that someone has to pass through or that some specific function has to take place in it. In a gate, the requirement of four handbreadths comes from somewhere. It basically says a person needs to pass through there. Okay? So you say, fine, then at least let there be a place below where a person can pass through—that I can understand. Because the requirement is a functional one, and a functional requirement has to exist in practice. With a hole there is no functional requirement; it is purely a requirement of significance. It could be that there we say we carve out to complete even when there is no part at all that truly has the full measure. And so that could be the explanation. Here we have the Ritva, the Rashba—sorry, wait, no, the Ritva, yes. The Ritva also raises Tosafot’s difficulty. He says as follows: "And if you say, in the case of any tiny hole, how can Rabbi Meir say we carve out to complete, for there in the case of the dome, where they dispute it in tractate Yoma, in the first chapter of Eruvin, we say that Rabbi Meir only says we carve out to complete when there are three handbreadths in its legs." In short, the same question as Tosafot. "And one can say"—the second part—"that when we say here ‘any size,’ it is not literal, but only means that it does not have four by four, and we are dealing with a case where at its opening it has four handbreadths by four handbreadths in length, but it is short." That is how the Rabbi of blessed memory explained it. That is Tosafot’s answer, right? That inside it is four by four and then it narrows. Okay. "The Rabbi of blessed memory" in the Ritva is the Ra’ah. He was a student of the Ra’ah. "And some explained"—that was the first explanation, so that is like Tosafot. But he brings another explanation: "And some explained that with regard to a hole, when there is in its width a handbreadth, the measure of a tent-space for impurity, it is different; with regard to a hole, when there is in its width a handbreadth, the measure of a tent-space for impurity, it is different." What is he saying? In our case of the hole, you do not need there to be a width of four inside. It could be that all the way through—or whether it is open straight through or not, that makes no difference—you don’t need it to be four wide. What you do need, though, is that it have a height of a handbreadth. Why? Because if it has a height of a handbreadth, then it is already called a tent-space. It has some minimum measure; it is no longer something negligible; it has some halakhic status—it is already called a tent-space—and then I can say we carve out the interior to complete it. He is making a requirement somewhat similar to Tosafot’s, but not the same. Tosafot requires that some part of the hole actually have four handbreadths, and then I say we carve out to complete and regard the whole hole as if it were four handbreadths. The Ritva makes this a width requirement, not a length requirement. If throughout the entire length of the hole it has a height of a handbreadth, then I am willing to carve it out—or a width or height of a handbreadth—then I am willing to carve it so that it will have an area of four handbreadths, or a height of four handbreadths. You are muted, Yael.

[Speaker D] Yes, thanks, sorry. Is there a condition here that if it is only a handbreadth, the hole has to be at a height of more than three handbreadths above the ground?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, in any case we are talking about above ten handbreadths, even in our hole. Okay? Below that it is like the ground.

[Speaker D] Right, so if it has—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —a height of a handbreadth, the Ritva says I am willing to complete it further. Meaning, he too requires a minimum measure in order to continue the carving. But the minimum measure does not mean that there has to be some part of the hole that has four by four; rather, the minimum measure means that out of the four, at least one is there. Understand? It is a minimum of width, not a minimum of length. What Tosafot says is that along the length of the hole there has to be some section that has the full area, and then I extend that farther along as well. The Ritva says it is a requirement about width. Across the width of the pit there has to be a height of a handbreadth. If it has a height of a handbreadth, I deepen it further.

[Speaker A] I understand, and I thought the Ritva meant both conditions.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, he doesn’t write both conditions. "And some explained" is an alternative.

[Speaker A] But really, a hole of a centimeter—we see that almost in every wall.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Not a centimeter—a handbreadth. A handbreadth is ten centimeters.

[Speaker D] Ten centimeters.

[Speaker A] So from his perspective, a hole of a handbreadth is enough, a handbreadth by a handbreadth by a handbreadth, and that’s it?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No—and if in the wall there is enough to carve out four by four, that is fine.

[Speaker A] Yes, yes, but in practice we are talking about just any hole.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] נכון. And if the hole is minimal, such that it is not nullified to the wall but has some independent halakhic status, then I am also willing to see the surrounding potential as carved out. But the hole has to have some minimum significance. Not like Tosafot, who requires some section that has the full area; rather, there has to be an area with minimum significance so that I can expand it further. Okay? And that too, of course, is another option for reconciling Rashi’s position. Now Rashi says "any hole," so it does not seem that he too is talking about a handbreadth. "Any" means any; there is no limitation. Okay? So that is why I think that even this does not work in Rashi.

[Speaker A] But Rashi still doesn’t seem very logical.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I haven’t managed to understand how Rashi is logical.

[Speaker A] A wall with a centimeter, a hole the size of a millimeter—what, there is no minimum condition for the size of the hole?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If there is surrounding potential, then no. But every little indentation…

[Speaker A] But where is the boundary? What, a minimum of a millimeter by a millimeter is already a hole? I don’t understand—where is the line? There is never any minimum threshold? Rashi doesn’t sound logical to me. When do I define something as a hole?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Wait—by the way, that is the plain meaning of the Gemara. The plain meaning of the Gemara is "any hole." That is what is written in the Gemara. Everything else is forced interpretation. The Gemara says "any hole." Okay? And that is Rabbi Meir’s novelty. Rabbi Meir says that if potentially I can widen it further, and after all some object is resting inside the hole, then this hole is not a millimeter-sized hole—the object managed to come to rest inside the hole. Okay? So still, there is no minimum measure for the hole. As long as the object rests there, from my perspective that is fine, if there is potential to carve it out to the full measure. Good, and here really the conclusion is the Rashba I referred you to—I should have started with him. Abaye said: in a private domain everyone agrees, in accordance with Rav Chisda—that is, we do not require that an object come to rest on top of a place of four handbreadths. And if it is difficult for you, since above it seems that even Abaye himself holds that we do require resting on a place of four by four, because we say: and if you say that our Mishnah is dealing with a place that does not have four, but Rav Yehuda said in the name of Rav, who said in the name of Rav Chiya, who said in the name of Rabbi: if one threw something and it came to rest in any hole, we have come to the dispute between Rabbi Meir and the Rabbis. What is the question? In the continuation of the sugya, the Gemara says that according to Rav Chisda, everyone agrees that in a private domain you do not need a place of four by four. But in our sugya, apparently you do need a place of four by four, because otherwise why would Rabbi Meir say we carve out to complete? "Carve out to complete" means we regard it as though it were a place of four by four. So why do we need that "as though"? There is no such requirement. So apparently we do see that there is such a requirement. Okay.

[Speaker D] Now again, in the sense—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In that sense, according to my approach, as I learned it at first, the hole is not a through-hole; rather, it is a hole facing the public domain, and Rabbi Meir’s discussion comes only to give it the significance of a place of four by four, so that I am placing it on a place of four by four in the public domain—then the Rashba’s question does not even begin. Right? Why? Because in the public domain you certainly do need a place of four by four. The only thing everyone agrees to is that in the private domain you do not need a place of four by four. As I said before, I was mistaken, and so the Rashba is right here—this is a valid question. And he adds another difficulty: from there as well it appears that both according to this master and according to the Rabbis, we require resting on a place of four by four; except that Rabbi Meir holds that we see it as though it were carved out, whereas the Rabbis do not accept this seeing. All right? So we see that a place of four by four is required. It seems, says the Rashba, that all of this is to make it into a private domain, because it does not become a private domain unless it has four by four; but in an actual private domain, any resting at all is sufficient. What is he saying? The hole has to be a place of four by four, because otherwise it simply would not be considered a private domain. If I have a place that is inside a private domain, and that place itself is not four by four, that is perfectly fine, because you do not need to place something on a place of four by four. But if I have a place that itself—I don’t even—

[Speaker D] —know where it is—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —it is a hole, then only if it has four by four will it itself be considered a private domain. And then you need four by four.

[Speaker A] What situation are we talking about?

[Speaker D] The hole, our hole.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Wait, our hole?

[Speaker D] Yes. We said that if we carve in the ground and it has another handbreadth around it, then the handbreadth can combine to make four by four and it will be called recesses of the private domain.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, but that is a different discussion. Earlier we talked about whether a minimum measure is needed. Now I am speaking generally about the sugya. Generally, the Rashba asks: apparently there is a contradiction between our sugya and the one later on. In the later sugya we see that you do not need a place of four by four in a private domain, but here we see that the entire dispute between Rabbi Meir and the Rabbis is about whether we carve out to complete, but everyone agrees that a place of four by four is needed. The question is whether I have four by four here or not—but apparently what are they arguing about? About not carving out to complete.

[Speaker D] Why do I care? So there is no four by four here—you don’t need four by four. So why are they arguing about carving? Wait, my question is different. Suppose there is a hole of a handbreadth in the wall, okay? And suppose that according to Rabbi Meir we carve out to complete, and the Rabbis say no—but if that opening of one handbreadth faces the private domain, it is considered a recess of the private domain even if it does not have four by four.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That is exactly what I am saying. So wait, one more sentence—that is a good point. One second, I just… The Rashba asks the question, the Rashba asks the question: if you do not need a place of four by four for placing in a private domain, then the entire dispute between the Rabbis and Rabbi Meir is unnecessary. Even if we do not carve out to complete and there is no place of four by four here—so what? In his question, the Rashba understood that the dispute between Rabbi Meir and the Sages is whether the carving turns this into a place of four by four. That is what confused me, but it means a place of four by four of a private domain, not of a public domain as I had thought, okay? But then another problem arises: if it is a place of four by four of a private domain, you don’t need that. Because in a private domain you do not need placing on a place of four by four. More than that—we saw in the Rashba, and now I’m coming to Yael’s point—we saw in the Rashba in the previous class, the Rashba in Avodat HaKodesh claims that a hole does not need to be a place of four by four. Recesses of the private domain do not need to be a place of four by four. So how does that fit with the Rashba here? Here he says that you need a place of four by four in order for the hole itself to be considered a private domain. Because if it were just a recess of the private domain, then even without four by four it would receive the status of private domain. And then whoever placed something there would be liable, because you do not need placing on a place of four by four in a private domain—that was the Rashba from the previous class. Here the Rashba is making a different claim: the hole that faces the public domain has to be considered a private domain in its own right, not by virtue of being a recess of the private domain on the inside. That applies only to the part of it that faces inward. The part of it that faces outward—if we are even dealing with a through-hole according to the Rashba, I’m not sure. If it is not a through-hole, then certainly that is so. So the hole itself has to acquire the status of private domain. It does not derive the status of private domain from the private domain located inside; it itself has to be considered a private domain, and there of course you certainly need an area of four by four. Without four by four it will not be a private domain. The problem is not that I am placing something on a place that is not four by four; the problem is that I have not placed it in a private domain at all. So there, says the Rashba, you certainly need a place of four by four. What do we see from this? That this outer hole, even if we view it as a private domain, is not a private domain because it is part of the recesses of the private domain inside, as Tosafot understood. It is a private domain in its own right. And what about its height? Problem. If it is a private domain in its own right, then what about its height?

[Speaker A] It has no height—how can that be?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I claim that with respect to its height too we say "carve out to complete."

[Speaker A] But why don’t we say "carve out to complete" with regard to height?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You said that. Rashi said that. Who says the Rashba agrees? Exactly—that is what I said. Tosafot said it on the basis of reasoning. In the Gemara I could manage otherwise.

[Speaker A] How can the Rashba in the Gemara—after all, what Tosafot—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —proved it from—where did he prove it from? From Yoma. What do we see there? That we require a measure of ten in height. Why not also apply "carve out to complete" to the height? My answer is: not so. I require a gross height of ten, not a net height.

[Speaker A] But that doesn’t fit with the ceiling that completes the ten when it is a handbreadth thick, from the previous sugya. I don’t understand. It doesn’t fit with the previous sugya, where a house is, say, nine handbreadths high and the thickness of the ceiling is one handbreadth.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That, I say, goes according to the Rabbis, and Rabbi Meir disagrees.

[Speaker A] Because earlier we said that nobody disagrees with that. That is Tosafot’s assumption.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right. Tosafot, based on reasoning like that—that it cannot be that carving applies to height—therefore learns it both in our sugya and in the sugya in Yoma. But I already noted there that with the sugyot themselves I can manage. Because after all, the Jewish law follows the Sages, so why do I have to establish that as Rabbi Meir? Fine—Rabbi Meir disagrees with the law of the house. That was stated according to the Sages, which is the Jewish law. And in Yoma I say that the requirement of a height of ten is a requirement of gross height, not net. So everything works out. And according to the Rashba it could be that indeed we do carve out to complete even in height. Because the Rashba treats this hole as an independent private domain. It is not merely a recess of the private domain.

[Speaker A] But the problem is that in Yoma there has to be one place that has ten, and here what you are claiming about this hole—we weren’t speaking in general about the idea that there is some place that has ten.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, right. You don’t need that. Who said you do? Only Tosafot assumes that you need a minimum in order for us to say "carve out to complete." The Ritva, for example, does not say that, or at least not entirely. Rashi also does not say that, so the Rashba can also not say that. You don’t have to mix Tosafot together with the constraints of the Gemara. The Rashba owes Tosafot nothing. Okay, I need to update my summaries a bit before I send them to you. So let’s stop here, and I’ll also send the previous summary. Sorry that it’s—thank you very much.

[Speaker A] Thank you very much.

[Speaker D] Shabbat shalom and happy holiday. Happy holiday. Shabbat shalom and happy holiday. Yes.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] To you as well. Happy holiday, good health, happy holiday, goodbye.